Attributes and Archetypes (2)

Holiness

            Up to this point we have analyzed isolated elements of the question of anthropomorphism.  Now, we must expand these elements to form complete units.  Allow me to present another example, which seems very significant to me, because it focuses on a prayer which is recited daily, the Kedusha.  When reciting the Kedusha, we join together with the angels and pronounce a fundamental truth.  These pronouncements originate from the visions of the prophets Yechezkel and Yeshayahu who heard the angels proclaim: "Holy Holy Holy ... blessed is the glory of God ...."  In this prayer we mention the "Ofanim" (celestial wheels) and the holy "Chayot" (beasts).  What do these terms mean?  Every child asks this question upon reading this prayer; however, soon after the question we tend to forget it, and lay it to rest with all our other unanswered queries.  Consequently, we fail to grasp the depth of these concepts.  Let us attempt to reach this deeper understanding together, following the footsteps of the Rambam.

             As we all know, this description of the Chayot and the Ofanim originates in Yechezkel's famous Vision of the Chariot.  The Rambam explains that this vision is a depiction of the relationship between the world, including the angels, and God, and a demonstration of the impenetrable barrier between the two spheres.  Without delving into the issue of the celestial beings, we will assume the existence of spiritual entities above man, just as we know of there are beings that are beneath him.  The prophet first describes the impassable chasm between the Creator and the world through the image of the distance between the rider and the chariot itself.  He then proceeds to illustrate the gap between God and the angels.  The chariot is composed of beasts, a type of horse, and of technology.  The most significant and revolutionary technological element of the chariot is the wheel, or what the prophet calls the "Ofan."  The image of the chariot conveys the sense that the components of our world are merely an insignificant cog in the machinery.  The Chayot appear in the vision in place of the horses drawing the chariot, except that the image is augmented by an additional element.  These Beasts are different than their earthly counterparts, for they are actually composites of various animals.  The angels are not described as additional passengers in the chariot, but as the Chayot and Ofanim which pull it.  They are merely a part of the chariot's mechanism, while the distance between them and their passenger remains constant and unbridgeable.  In the vision, a kind of platform is described, which separates the chariot from everything beyond it.  This platform symbolizes the heavens, which in turn illustrates the unbridgeable gap between the Creator and all other creatures.  God is symbolized by the man in the chariot; however, we must remember that the human form is one of the faces that appear among the Chayot.

            I would like to point out another detail, which is relevant to one of our previous lectures.  In his description of the Chayot, Yechezkel the prophet says that "their leg was a straight leg."  This is the position that we imitate in the Kedusha and in the Amida prayer.  This means that the angels have only one leg, which teaches us that they are beyond a division into sexes.  How much more so is God beyond such distinctions.

            This description of the chariot illustrates the full meaning of the barrier that separates the creature from its Creator.  The prophet uses physical representation; however, the vision is carefully constructed, and is actually a statement opposing any physical representation of God.  The utter gap between the creature and the Creator is expressed in the fifth principle of the Rambam's thirteen principles of faith.

            Do the angels belong to a sphere beyond our own?  This question is disputed among Jewish thinkers.  However, clearly the assumption of the existence of angels means that just as we know that distant galaxies exist in the natural world, we believe in the existence of a spiritual reality that is not of our own creation.

            Rabbi Avraham Ben David of Posquieres, better known by his acronym Ra'avad, opposed a number of aspects of the Rambam's approach.  His opposition stemmed from the perspective of the Kabbalist.  We have seen, for example, that when the Scriptures write, "the eyes of God," we take human reality and try to apply it in the expression of religious ideas.  However, there are two possible approaches to this type of interpretation.  To understand the difference between the approach of philosophy and the kabbalistic approach, we must point out the difference between allegory and symbol.  After the allegory is written, it can be translated, for example by writing "Divine Providence" in place of the "eyes of God."  The eye is an allegory.  However, the Kabbalists say otherwise.  In fact, the opposite is true, and the fact that man has eyes is not coincidental.  All of our earthly reality is a reflection of its archetype in the spiritual world.  The symbol is not a mere linguistic invention; it is an expression of the relationship between our everyday reality and the spiritual world.  This does not mean that God has eyes, but that Divine Providence possesses a characteristic which is expressed in the eye.  The eye is a symbol.  The symbol and the object symbolized are much more closely connected than the allegory and its interpretation.  The philosopher claims that the use of the term "the eyes of God" is meant to explain the spiritual reality to people in terms that they can understand.  This is anthropomorphism, the use of human language.  However, for the Kabbalist the direction is reversed; the lower world can be seen as a model for the spiritual reality of the higher world.  In a similar vein, some doctors claim the ability to discover diseases through an eye examination.  A doctor of this type does not use eyes as an allegory.  He sees them as intrinsically significant and necessary, for his method is based upon the assumption of a parallel between the appearance of the eye and the state of the entire body.  The Torah uses the language of symbols.

            The Kabbala perceives everything in our world as a distorted, imperfect reflection of the upper world.  Man has two hands which function differently, one hand being stronger than the other.  This asymmetry reflects the fact that in the upper world there is a lack of symmetry between the divine attributes of Law, symbolized by the Left, and of Mercy, symbolized by the Right.

            One final example.  The lowest Sefira is called Malkhut (royalty, or dominion).  The Sefira of Malkhut is symbolized by the Hebrew letter Dalet.  The letter Dalet is the symbol of  dearth (Hebrew: dalut), or passivity.  The Sefira of Tif'eret is the symbol of activity, represented by the Hebrew letter Vav.  The connection between them is, in essence, the connection between the giver and the recipient of charity.  This is symbolized by the graphic connection between the letter Vav and the letter Dalet, which creates the letter Heh, the symbol of true Malkhut.  According to the Kabbala, this connection is reflected on every plane.  Thus, when a person gives charity, he gives to the Dal, the needy, and forges a connection between the Vav and the Heh.

            This compels us to see the larger picture in a different light.  Take the example of the word "book."  We can view this word as a pointer referring to all books.  In this simple approach, the written word, made of letters, suggests the reality.  However, this is only half the truth.  The Kabbalists claim that reality itself is composed of letters.  In other words, our reality is also a written text, which suggests the existence of something deeper that itself.  It would be a mistake to think that our perception of reality is the end of the analysis.  Reality itself is a text, which hints at a deeper reality.

(This lecture was translated by Gila Weinberg.)